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Friday, December 31, 2010

It's the last day of 2010 and it's white all around here in our neck of woods. Mother Nature gave us a wet Christmas but showered us with snow a few days after.

I have been looking at the LD Delilah Tags SVG set and while the pink colors of the samples got me thinking of Valentine's Day, I decided to use winter colors instead.

Selecting the papers for this project was easy because I had bought a pack of Echo Park's Wintertime Papers from Crop Chocolate earlier this month. The colors of this pack were perfect for the card I had in mind.

Using Make-the-Cut, I imported the Delilah Tag svg. The tag has 2 layers and I added the text "Winter" using LD's TXT Long Hand font. I used the "Shape Magic > Join" tool and joined the text to the first layer so that the words will be cut out.

I also used the font LD Woodland to print out "Celebrate" after I cut the layer out with the Cricut. How did I do that? Well, I used my super easy "Cut-and-Print" method. You can read about that technique here.

Have you put in your entry for the $20 Lettering Delights Gift Certificate Giveaway? If not, you might want to do it now because today is the last day to enter. For rules and other details, just click on this link:

Thursday, December 30, 2010

While I have been posting quite a lot about the Lettering Delights Matryoshka Dolls lately, I realize I had not mentioned that I had reconfigured the layers for the dolls' faces. My posts on the dolls do not seem complete until I show you how to do that.

If you had purchased the SVG set, you might notice that it does not come with a separate hair layer. I like the look of a separate hair layer as it adds dimension to the face.

Making that layer is super easy. In MTC, just use the Boolean Join tool on the face and head layers like this:

I used doll no. 5 for the screenshots above. The hair layers for the boy dolls were made in the same way. Of course, if you prefer the original look of the dolls as intended by LD, you can just skip these steps. I won't judge. ;-)

I really liked the colors that LD had chosen to use with the dolls but when I first started cutting out them out, it took me a while to select and match all the patterned paper that I needed. It would have been so easy if there was a paper pack that would coordinate with the set. Guess what? I was just on the LD site and they just added a paper pack!

The new Matryoshka Family Paper Pack is perfect for this SVG set and would probably have save me some time from picking out paper from my giant collection of DCWV stacks then. If you want to attempt a Print-and-Cut project, LD has also added the super cute Matryoshka Familygraphic set.

Seriously, how cute are these dolls? Whether they are from the SVG or Graphic sets, I love them all and boy am I glad that I didn't have to wait in line to get them like I did for those other dolls. ;-)

All I did was to overlay the note card SVG with the doll SVG in Make-the-Cut and adjusted the former until it fits the doll. Once I get it in the size that I want, I cut it out and adhered the doll to it.

I made the bases for the girl dolls in a jiffy...

and thought I'd make some for the boys too.

Here are a couple more pictures to show you the details on the girls. I used foam tape to add dimensions to the floral designs and applied Stickles to let them sparkle. ;-)

By the way, I absolutely love the house card too.

I think that this set is totally adorable. I didn't get around to making the house-shaped envelope but just imagine how cute it'll be to stick a doll note card in a house envelope with the doll looking out a window?

Thursday, December 23, 2010

It's Christmas Eve Eve and the presents are already rolling in. :-) Here's a very special freebie from Lettering Delights that is only available from a few selected blogs. Just click here or the picture below to download the free Nordic Christmas SVG set.

Don't forget to scroll down to the previous post for a chance to win a $20 Lettering Delights Gift Certificate.

Have a Magical Christmas, everyone!

p.s If you have trouble downloading the file from the LD link above, you can also download by clicking on the icons below. There are two files in the set. Please download both the nordic_christmas.pdf AND the nordic_xmas.zip files.

"You like me, you really like me!" is what I almost blurted out when I saw the latest Lettering Delightsnewsletter.

Remember the cards that I made in this post? They won 1st place in the LD 2nd Annual Holiday Card Contest! FIRST PLACE!! Woo Hoo!

I may not be an Oscar winner but I'd like to think that what I'm feeling now is how Sally Fields felt when she won at the 1985 Academy Awards. It feels awesome to win but I wouldn't be writing this post if not for all of your support and so instead of enjoying this alone, I would like to invite you to come up and share the stage (and prize) with me.

I am giving away the $100 LD prize in the form of FIVE $20 Lettering Delights Gift Certificates to 5 winners. Each winner will win ONE $20 Lettering Delights Gift Certificate from me!

How to win

The rules for this giveaway is slightly different from my past blog candies because this giveaway is intended for the supporters of this blog. So, to qualify for the drawing...

You must be a follower to enter in the giveaway. If you are not already a follower, just click on the "Follow" button on the right.

Leave ONE comment on this post to be counted as ONE entry.

If you "Like" this blog on Facebook, you
may leave a second comment for a total of 2 entries. Just mention some
where in the comment that it is your 2nd entry. Please leave your 2nd comment on this blog post and not on Facebook. If you do not already "Like" this blog, just click on the "Like" button on the top right.

Make sure that you leave your email address or any other form of contact so that I may inform you if you win.

Entries to the giveaway will be accepted
from now until Friday, Dec 31, 11:59pm PST. The 5 winners will be chosen
by RANDOM.ORG and announced on Saturday, January 1, 2011.

BUT that is not all, Lettering Delights also has a special gift for all of us, click here or the image below to claim your present. Just add it to your cart and check out.

Tuesday, December 21, 2010

Oh, come on! Get your head out of the gutter. Even though the title suggests otherwise, there's really nothing risque in this post. :-P Today, we are all about cute. Matryoshka Doll-Cute, that is.

I'm sure by now you would have seen the LD Matryoshka Doll SVG set. I *heart* this set! There's something about these dolls that make me go "Awwwww....soooo cute." Then again, as much as I love it, I have to say that I was a little mad when I first saw the SVG set. It was Black Friday 2009 and I was up early so that I could be at Michaels' when they opened just so I can get my hands on the Paisley cartridge. All because it was then a newly released cart that had the only FOUR Matryoshka doll cuts in the whole Cricut Cartridge library. I spent $29.99 plus 9.8% tax on it and thought I was so lucky to get that cartridge.

Now I just think that I was stupid. :-(

The LD Matryoshka Dolls contains 12 different styles of dolls including both boy dolls and girl dolls. TWELVE dolls! And it even comes with a super cute house-shaped envelope and a doll-shaped accordian card. All for 6 bucks (or just $4.20 if you use the 30% off $15 coupon above). Grrrr....

Anyway, the first style that I chose to cut was doll no. 3. One of the best things about svg files and Make-the-Cut is that you can easily reconfigure the layers if you like. I wasn't comfortable with the original layers of this doll and so I did some rearranging to get this:

Of course, once I started I couldn't stop and I ended up with a bunch of dolls. Look! Don't they look preeetttty? :-)

Sure, I could make cards out of them but why make cards when you can make...

..calendars! I bought a pack of mini calendars from the local stamp store but you can easily find mini calendars downloads on the internet. Just Bing it!

To get the cuts for the two bases, I made a shadow layer of the doll and welded it to a rectangle the size of the calendar. Then, I made a shadow layer of that. Super quick and easy!

To embellish, I used my Diamond Stickles to add some glitter and a i-rock hot-fix rhinestone for some bling. I attached an eyelet from which I strung a piece of baker's twine with 3 jingle bells. I also affixed a strip of adhesive-backed magnet to the back of the calendar in case the recipient of this mini hanging calendar decides that she doesn't want to hang it after all. She can still stick it to a magnetic surface.

After all, whether it is hanging or stuck on, everyone can use a mini Matryoshka Doll calendar, right?